Premier urged to weed out anti-minorities content from textbooks

Pakistani Premier has been urged to take notice of the hate content implanted in the curriculum used in schools and colleges. Pakistan Minorities Teachers Association (PMTA) sent a research document to the PM Imran Khan urging him to revise the curriculum and eradicate anti-minorities content. It was demanded that biased content including text and photos must be removed.

PMTA’s document titled “Need to Foster Peace through Images and Language of Pakistani Textbooks”, contains research based observations and recommendations. Chairman of Pakistan Minorities Teachers’ Alliance Professor Anjum James Paul maintained that the curriculum must be purged of the hate content which is fostering intolerance, extremism and narrow-mindedness among Pakistani students.

“The Father of the nation, the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah presented the ideology of Pakistan in his presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 saying “We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State,” the document reads.

Expounding its objectives in the document, PMTA stated: “To make effort for equal citizenship, equal rights and equal opportunities for all the citizens of Pakistan without any discrimination at any level. To make effort for value based and need based curriculum and textbooks. To make effort for the exclusion of all sorts of bigotry from the textbooks on the basis of caste and creed to foster the culture of peace and harmony.”

“To make effort for the proper implementation of article 22 (1) of the Constitution of Pakistan to safeguard the faith matters of affected students of religious minorities. To make effort for the constitutional amendment for the compulsory religious education of deprived religious minority students because arrangements have been made for compulsory ‘Islamic Studies’ for Muslim students only under article 31 of the Constitution of Pakistan.”

“To make effort for the arrangement of 5 % quota for marginalized religious minority students in the higher educational institutions and the medical and engineering colleges and universities. To make effort for the 20 privileged marks for the religious minority students as it is in the case of Muslim students who memorize the Holy Quran by heart. To make effort to ensure 5 % quota in the Federal and Provincial services for the religious minorities. To make effort for the denationalization of missionary educational institutions.”